Saturday, January 7, 2012

Shut Up and Do It...

"You've already got it Madeline. Your doing it. Now, KEEP GOING..." said Joe, shaking his head in disbelief. I've been taking swimming classes for the last few months, and my oxymoronic coalition of willfulness and apprehension has never been clearer then when I'm swimming. For example, when learning flip turns, I struggled and pushed myself until I finally got it. Then something happened. I would swim, flip, and for some reason stop. Joe, my teacher, was perplexed. "Stop thinking about it and just DO it!" he finally told me after I had pelted him with one too many technical questions. Little did Joe know that this innocent little flip turn was quickly becoming a metaphor for my life, and swim class, my therapy session.

I decided to try his advice. I stopped thinking about it, all of it. I stopped thinking about how to do the turn, about why I seemed unable to follow through after accomplishing it, I stopped thinking about how symbolic this was of my life approach, and I just did it. I swam, kicked, turned, and kept going. Water up my nose, having done nothing close to a good turn, I kept swimming, because, in actuality, this was a swim class, not a therapy session. And although swimming might help clarify my issues and strengths, I am here to swim. Simple.

So with that in mind, I decided that my one resolution of 2012 be reserved for the pool. I am famous in class for shaking my head 'no' every time Joe gives us a challenging task. Every time he tries to test our ability, I put the breaks on by deciding that I won't be able to do it. Well not anymore. As of 2012, if Joe should tell us to swim 8, 50 yard sets on the 55, though it might seem outside my ability, I will not question him, I will not shake my head 'no', I will not even try, I'll just do it. If I accomplish it, great! Awesome! Amazing! If not, alright, no big deal. I'll just keep going.

To be honest with you, I'm a little scared and a little excited, probably of the same thing... I'm scared of all the times I may not cut it. I'm more scared of the times that I will. In ways that I don't wholly understand, I'm most scared of finding my potential - as if holding it in my hands might be too great, or too disappointing. It's impossible to know from where I stand, but I have decided that 2012 be the year that I get down to tapping my own potential, and there is no room for low balling it. It's time to just shut up and do it, and it's time to eliminate the word 'no' from my vocabulary.